<<<E-mail question that came in this morning>>>

Is there any connection between the Takagi Yoshin Ryu and the Togakure Ryu???

<<<My response>>>

I am not sure if there is any direct connection between the two schools but there is the fact that
Takamatsu Sensei (black box, pic 1) had two masters of Togakure Ryu ninjutsu.

The first is the mysterious Toda Shinryuken Masamitsu (blue box with star, pic 1) whom we know almost
nothing about.

The other was Ishitani Matsutaro (yellow box with no star, pic 2). Matsutaro was also Takamatsu
Senseis Takagi Ryu master (lineage chart, pic 2).

In the oral tradition of the Togakure Ryu, Matsutaros father, Ishitani Takeo Masatsugu (yellow box with
star, pic 2) was a master for a lineage of the Togakure Ryu that was separate from that of the Toda
family (see yellow box, pic 1). It is my understanding that this lineage of the Togakure Ryu was called
Happo Bikenjutsu.

The last point I would also like to make is that Takamatsu Senseis father (black box with star, pic 2) is
shown as being a master of the Takagi Ryu under Ishitani Takeo Masatsugu. So, while maybe Takamatsu
Senseis father may not have studied ninjutsu with Masatsugu, it is more than likely that Masatsugu
taught his son, Matsutaro, who in turned later taught the young Takamatsu Sensei. My assumption
would also be that Takamatsu Senseis father, Gishin, would have been aware of the Togakure Ryu
traditions that Masatsugu was a master of. I would imagine that the Toda, Ishitani and Takamatsu
families are well intertwined and have a long history together in the area.

Different from other Koryu martial arts like the Takagi Yoshin Ryu, etc., Ninjutsu is supposed to be
transmitted orally and never written down. This practice is said to have come from Shugendo, whose
practitioners and priests did not write anything down (when the original true Shugendo was still in
practice). This makes things historically difficult to track and we need to rely upon the oral traditions of
Toda Sensei as handed down by Takamatsu and Hatsumi Soke.